Physicists from Princeton used know-how from researching the behavior of electromagnetic waves in plasma inside a fusion reactor and grafted them onto gravitational waves in space-time. The results are promising. In the future, we could learn news about the very distant universe in this way, all the way back to its very beginnings in the heat of the Big Bang.
Neutron star collision simulation. Credit: L. Rezolla (AEI) & M. Koppitz (AEI & Zuse-Institut Berlin).
According to physics student Deepen Garg of the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics, which runs at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), we cannot observe the newborn universe directly. But there are some indirect possibilities. With colleague Ilya Dodin, he proposes that we use how the gravitational waves of that time affected the matter and radiation that we can observe today. According to them, this could give us a better understanding of the state of the universe shortly after the Big Bang.
Deepen Garg. Kredit: PPPL.
Garg and Dodin subtly used the methods of their previous research, which was about something completely different – fusion energy. The long-awaited merger must overcome a number of technical difficulties. Part of this effort also includes analyzing the movement of electromagnetic waves through plasma, which is a common phenomenon in tokamaks and stellarators.
Logo. Kredit: PPPL.
In a happy coincidence, this process in a hellish fusion furnace resembles the passage of gravitational waves through space-time. As Garg admits, they simply took the calculations around the motion of electromagnetic waves through plasma and grafted them onto the matter of gravitational waves and the newborn universe.
Researchers have developed mathematical procedures that could theoretically distill the hidden properties of an object from very deep space from gravitational waves. When gravitational waves pass through matter, radiation is produced, the characteristics of which correspond to the density of the matter. The research of such radiation can bring information about very distant stars, more extreme space objects and also about the turbulent first moments of the universe itself.
The study’s authors say their research began quietly, not knowing what it would lead to. At first it looked like a small project for half a year with everything, for one student, i.e. Gargo. But then they delved very deeply and found that there is room for thorough theoretical research. Now they are grinding their teeth on further analyses, which will certainly be welcome in cosmology and gravitational astronomy.
Video: Operator Methods for Reduced Modeling of Waves in Plasmas by Ilya Dodin
Literature
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics online 10. 8. 2022.
